


The Breath Beneath His Ribs

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Series: And So He is to The Other [2]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Asphyxiation, Asshole Tamlin, Bossy Lucien, Choking, Hair-pulling, Hate Sex, Humiliation, M/M, Revenge Sex, Rough Sex, Wall Sex, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-23 11:40:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11989068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: “You are nothing more than the dirt beneath my feet to me now, Tamlin.” His voice does not waver, does not fail him. He is no longer the toy crying against the bathtub. “And after today, I will be lucky if I never have to see you again.”_______Lucien returns one last time to the Spring Court, one last time to Tamlin. However, this time he does not come as anything, anyone, but a victor.Spiritual successor to The Wax Between His Feathers, but also a stand-alone. Post ACOWAR.





	1. Return to The Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of two. Trigger warnings for mentions of past abuse.

Leaving the Spring court had been a case of glorified fleeing. But this is not then; Lucien has a true home to go back to now. He is bound to Spring no longer, bound to Tamlin no more.

And yet he returns. However, this time he does so with his back straight, his good eye sharp, his mechanical eye watching. The broad set of his shoulders says everything: I helped save us all, my debt is paid.

_I owe you nothing._

Perhaps that was why Tamlin knew not to challenge him in front of his courtiers. Instead, he dismissed everyone in the throne room barely a minute after Lucien strode in. Whispers fade behind him, marking the fine silk and dark hues of his night court attire, the way he walks like he owns this court. Good, let them think that. He has done more for it than any of them ever have.

Tamlin does not whisper. He does not even stand, not even when they are alone, his huge frame draped across his throne. Shadows mark his eyes, and though he is handsome as ever, his stark cheekbones are gaunt, pale beneath his tan. Months of travelling and hunting and fighting have carved Lucien into a shape he has never known before, one of skill and sharp edges, long limbs and strong grips. The fear that giant’s body once struck through him is absent. It is like regarding a child.

“You’ve come crawling back, then, have you?” Tamlin drawls, his tone oh so lazy, oh so disaffected. It tightens something hot in Lucien’s stomach, and he remembers. He did not linger here so long just to help pacify a dormant tyrant.

He has grown so much now, and yet his throat still dries. His chest tightens. It feels as if he has been holding his breath for all this time, but has only now realised it.

He sees it reflected in the way Tamlin’s gaze cannot ignore him, no matter how hard it tries to focus on the ceiling, feigning boredom. Those hollow cheeks speak of hunger. Starvation is something Lucien knows well.

“I came to ensure you were putting the proper measures in place to rebuild. Rhysand is concerned you will abuse the disarray and take it out on your people.” Lucien makes sure to put enough disdain into his voice to disguise the warning. “There’s been discussion of a coup. You may be the only heir, but others can still rule this land.”

“Oh?” Tamlin says, his tone betraying no concern. Good.

It is exactly that kind of attitude that Lucien came for.

“And what,” Tamlin inspects his nails, picking at them, “Did they send you to dethrone me? Are _you_ going to rule now?”

“Perhaps, in the future.” The idea of Tamlin as his subject is certainly… an interesting one. “But for now, they’re affording you the benefit of the doubt. Try not to fuck it up this time.”

Twisting his nose in disgust at the very thought, Tamlin looks over at him. A slow, lecherous smirk cuts through his disinterest. “So you came here to warn me?” His high, condescending tone nearly does it, nearly breaks Lucien. He has to bite down on his tongue very, very hard to stop himself doing something stupid. “So you do care.”

“Care is not the right word,” he forces himself to sound civilised, however obvious the falsehood is. “But things felt… unfinished, left as they were.”

“That,” Tamlin says softly, “is the perfect way of putting it.”

He rises from his throne and descends down the steps. Lucien’s mouth goes dry as he watches him, his slow, easy movements, the way arrogance radiates just from the measure of his bones. At least it confirms that coming here was necessary; there was no way he could leave things as they were, when  _this_  is his reaction to the bastard.

“Do not for a second think you can make me believe that is my fault,” Lucien says through gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off of the approaching man. “You abandoned me first.”

“Well with Feyre around, things had to be different.” Tamlin just shrugs, stopping too close to him for comfort. Well within distance of grabbing him with those lethal hands.

“They weren’t different enough.”

Lucien nearly loses it when Tamlin grins and says, “What can I say? You made things difficult.” Because he is still taller, still broader, still so damnlarge, he has no problem forcing Lucien back, marching forth to bring him to retreat back towards the closed doors.

“You know that’s a shit excuse,” Lucien hisses back, glaring up at his past High Lord as his back comes flush against wood.

Whatever it is in Tamlin that makes him like this, be it beast or broken pieces, it drives his hand to grasp Lucien’s throat, pinning him to the door. “Do you know,” he snarls, “how fucking hard it was not to  _ruin you_ when I saw you with her in her night things?”

Any normal man would be scared. Lucien can feel the edges of claws pressing into his jugular. Yet he looks back at Tamlin and grins, because he has  _won_ . “You are such a possessive asshole,” he jeers, his voice quiet and low but they both know what that voice means. Tamlin, idiot that he is, thinks it proves his victory. Which is fine; Lucien will crush that belief only at the very end, right as he leaves him to rot.

“And you’re not?” Tamlin fires back, that insufferable smirk boiling Lucien’s blood far too effectively. “Do you really think I don’t know what that stunt with Feyre and the Suriel was _really_ about?” It is Lucien’s turn to grab him, seizing the brute’s jaw and squeezing it so hard his nails leave angry red marks.

“You thought playing with me was fun, did you?” He snarls right back. “I nearly killed my best friend because of you fucking about.”

Sighing, Lucien removes his grip and leans back into the door, regarding Tamlin with a newfound maturity. “But I can’t blame you for that. It was me who let you manipulate me like that. Me who did that to her. I should have known better.”

“Well aren’t you all grown up,” Tamlin seethes, moving in even closer, bringing their faces near an inch apart. “How high and mighty you are. Better than everybody else.”

“Not everybody,” Lucien answers cooly, “Just you.”

Tamlin moves to snap something back, but his breath is stolen as Lucien yanks on his collar and brings them level. “You are nothing more than the dirt beneath my feet to me now, Tamlin.” His voice does not waver, does not fail him. He is no longer the toy crying against the bathtub. “And after today, I will be lucky if I never have to see you again.” He does not regret a single word as he says, “But today, you are going to fuck me in every single fucking room of this vile place, everywhere you have fucked me before, and then we are done. This whole sick affair is finished.”

“You think you can make demands like that of  _me_?” Tamlin seethes.

“Oh please,” Lucien rolls his eyes, the thrill rising when Tamlin slams his head back into the door. He does not wince as he stares back and says, “I can practically smell the desperation on you. How long’s it been since you fucked someone, hmm? With me gone, who here would you trust to keep your dirty little secret? Who here would  _let you_? Who-”

It does not matter that he does not get to finish; They were just words, whereas Tamlin’s mouth on his is heat and anger and an exorcism he once could never even imagine. “You never could fucking shut up,” he growls into kisses that speak of the decades spent together in bedsheets and darkness, but say nothing of warmth.

“You never could listen.”

Though his only remaining debt to Tamlin is centuries’ worth of derision, speech falls by the wayside. Teeth take center stage. Tongues, lips, ear lobes and necks, nothing can be forgotten if Lucien is to cleanse them all. Once, he gave Tamlin everything, inside and out. Taking it back cannot be rushed.

Besides, he does not want to; he savours the long minutes of Tamlin carving hickies into his collarbone. The stink of desperation is sweeter than any perfume the Night Court can offer him. Through heavy-lidded eyes he watches Tamlin descend into him, into the frenzy only his marred skin has ever conjured, and tastes triumph for the first pure time.

No shame accompanies his moaning. He does not hold back his noise for one moment; let the whole damn court hear. It is not his secret to keep anymore. And Tamlin is too alone and aching to restrain the sink of his teeth, the fuck his hands promise as he gropes Lucien’s crotch. The thought of rumours being Tamlin’s final downfall only make him harder.

“You filthy fucking slut,” Tamlin rasps as he seizes Lucien’s wrists and clasps them together high above his head. He just laughs, helping him tug his waistline down to free his cock and then lifts to wrap his new strong, powerful legs around the other’s hips, egging him on, grinding his erection against the hard panel of the Lord’s abs and loving how he makes the man moan.

“You are so begging for it,” Lucien whispers, the glee in his everything driving Tamlin to precum all over his thighs. “Cauldron, you’re pathetic.”

“Yet here you are.” Lucien has always worshipped Tamlin’s muscles, the width of those fantastic shoulders, never more so than now as he is lifted higher to expose his ass for the taking. It is hotter still how Tamlin trembles as he keeps him propped against the door. Once he thought him infallible. Unkillable. Now look at him shake.

“Your cock still has its uses,” he says, right as Tamlin forces into him.

The only compliment he will give this bastard is the scream his makes as he is penetrated, for Tamlin is fucking well hung. It would be a waste not to ride that cock now that he is no longer plaything to its owner. “Shut up,” Tamlin grunts through struggling to fuck him in this position, facing each other like this. Normally he’d pitch from behind - Lucien smirks; Perhaps he has become a romantic. Too bad Lucien has no need for his toxic affections anymore.

“Make me, you arrogant prick.” He half laughs, half whimpers as he is rammed into dry and rough, though far from unprepared. “This whole castle-” It is impossible not to cry out as Tamlin slams fully into him, even as he tries to shove a hand across his mouth to silence him. Cocky with victory, Tamlin leans in and holds, buried in him, so close to his ear.

“Still so loose after all this time.” Hatred has served only to relax him. He does not fear his own reactions now that consequence died weeks ago. “Bats been taking care of you? You always were a whore.”

“And they are so much better at this than you,” Lucien responds with a sugar sweet smile. “Tired already? Need to put me down, catch your breath? Poor-” Furious fingers around his throat return, but they leave the doors behind. Still hilt-deep in him, Tamlin carries him back across that  long. long room, up those infernal steps, to the throne. Oh, how Lucien knows that throne well. “Just like old times, huh?” He jeers, chuckling when Tamlin laughs. This man used to be his best friend.

“Up,” Tamlin orders him, and like a pup he obeys. This space is familiar, a mindset he has tasted before. It is so much more delightful removed of fear. Resting his arms atop the back of the chair, he leans forward and waits, feeling rather than watching as Tamlin kneels behind him. “You stink of bat.” The way he knots his fingers in Lucien’s long hair has always been unfairly erotic. Slipping gently into the release of submission, he simply moans, tipping his head back into the touch.

“Could they ever get you like this?” Tamlin asks quietly, his other hand sliding beneath his shirt to explore the curve of his hips. He tisks. “Urgh. They’ve ruined you. You used to be so soft.”

“People change,” Lucien pants back, more than a little breathless because a certain hand is gripping his cock and fondly the head.

“So I’ve noticed.” It requires all of his effort not to come from such a messy, simple touch. He has not changed as much as he would have liked. “But you’re still the same, like this. Still blush so easily, still so-” He ghosts one finger up the shaft of his trembling cock and only a whimper saves Lucien from coming, “-sensitive.”

“Missed me?” Tamlin mocks when Lucien grinds back against him, wordlessly begging for him to hurry up and fuck him already.

“Not in the slightest.”

“Hmm. I’ve missed you.” Fingers tighten in his hair as he gasps, the hand upon him too tight, too deft, too familiar. He has not missed Tamlin, but by the Mother, how he has missed  _this_ . “The noises you make, when you _finally_ stop speaking.”

Just for that, Lucien thrusts back against his cock and traps it between the two of them, eliciting the most gorgeous poetry of swear words from the bastard behind him. “Fuck you.”

“Oh, finally, you’re begging for it.”

“I hate you.” Lucien laughs, though that does not make the words any less true.

“Good,” Tamlin says. He is whispering in his ear, all of a sudden too soft, too _sad_. “You deserve to.”

Before either of them can address that particular moment, Lucien is crippled over the back of the chair and gasping. The hand in his hair tugs back, pulling too hard to be playful as he is fucked hard and fast against the stone structure. “Fuck,” he hisses, losing authority over his limbs. Over his own voice. He is only half conscious of the filth spilling from his tongue as he clenches lost and longing onto rock, air, Tamlin’s firm thighs.

“Still so high and mighty, darling?” Tamlin purrs against the sweet spot beneath his ear, betwixt his lobe and jaw. Grinning, Lucien knows just how to answer.

“Have you put it in yet?”

“You little-” Even Tamlin moans as Lucien’s ass constricts around his dick, meeting more and more resistance as he fucks him harder, longer, savouring the outcry of hitting him  _just_   _so_  back there.

“Hurry up and fuck me you bastard.” The world is spinning as air abandons him. His muscles, trained and firm as they are, prove to be little more than jelly when faced with Tamlin’s unrelenting cock. “You really have got out of practice, haven’t you.”

“Feyre was never this needy.”

“Feyre,” Lucien says the the last of his lingering animosity towards his best friend, “was never this much _fun_.”

Chuckling warm and raw against his bruised shoulders, Tamlin fails with a comeback as he too loses himself to the game. For a rare moment, they are devoid of insults. Only panting survives here. Gasping, moaning, Lucien struggling to hold on longer and longer as he cannot feel his body, only the hot intimate sensation of being intruded upon, of being opened up and taken. As if possessed he twitches without his permission, nails scraping against stone as Tamlin buries his cold teeth deep into his neck, fucking him harder and harder until-

“Fuck,” Lucien weeps as he comes. Already, cum drips down his thighs, already Tamlin is collapsed against him, sucking on his skin with his wanting mouth as if it could lease him air. “Fucking Cauldron fucking fuck.” Hysterical on oxygen deprivation, pain, and pleasure, Lucien cannot stop laughing. He has missed this. He has missed being fucked as if he is not delicate. All the ‘bats’, as Tamlin calls them, treat him like a fragile outsider, a victim of war torn discourse and a wary ally. Even those that like him. Even those who like touching him.

“You never did pity me,” he thinks aloud, forehead bowed against the cool stone.

“Was I supposed to?”

“I would have left the second you did.”

“That, my little slut,” Tamlin croons, stroking his jawline as if admiring a fine painting, “was obvious.”

Silence does not haunt them, but encloses them for a long while after. In a moment of rare tenderness, Tamlin lingers, threading his fingers gentle through his hair, the crimson strands far longer since he last touched them. “I like it long,” he mumbles, curling the tips around his little finger.

“You certainly seemed attached to it,” Lucien muses, relishing in the afterglow of the orgasm, though the itch is returning to his skin.

“It has the ability to draw the finest noises from you.”

“I hope you’ll continue to make use of it.”

“Oh?” Tamlin hums, arching one eyebrow as he nuzzles his nose against those dark marks he left not moments ago, trailing Lucien’s neck. “You’re still not satisfied?”

“This is but one room,” Lucien replies, perfectly calm, perfectly serious. The fond warmth dissolves as he remembers why he is here. As he remembers the truth of what has passed. “Take me upstairs, now,” he instructs, turning to look back at his once lover, once abuser. “I’m not done with you yet.”   


	2. Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would hope I don't _need_ to say this, but the following kink/bdsm/intercourse practice is not of the healthy kind, and please don't try anything utilized here without proper safety and research.

“So just why am I acceptable to fuck only  _ now _ ?” Tamlin muses from where he reclines upon his bed. 

“Because now I can leave,” Lucien answers with disinterest, circling the room he once knew oh so well. It smells different. That shouldn’t bother him, but it does. “I have a home to go to, if I want it.”

“Was this ever home to you?” 

Lucien looks back at him. “You already know the answer to that.”

“It could have been.” Is Tamlin pleading with him? There is no pity or regret in his tone. All Lucien can detect is factual statement. “Once Amarantha was killed. Once Feyre left.” 

“Do you really believe that?” Lucien asks. Anger should colour his words, but he has spent so many years locked in fury and loathing. He’s not even sure why he asks; he does not want to understand. “Do you really think this could have been a home to me, after everything you did? After everything we did?” 

“People change,” Tamlin says, echoing his earlier panting. Though he tells himself he is over it, Lucien cannot help the bitter smirk that curls his lips.

“And yet you never have.” 

“I-”

“Shut up.” Crossing from examining one of Feyre’s paintings, Lucien stands before him, looking down at his languid body language. Which one tells the truth though: His lines or the thirst in his eyes? Regardless, it does not matter. “I’m not here for you to tell yourself more delusions.” 

“No,” Tamlin hisses back, a nerve struck. “You’re here to be a filthy little whore, like you always were.” Lucien’s smirk widens. 

“I loved you, once.” Not so long ago. Sometimes he still wakes from the memory of vying for whatever scraps of contact he was allowed. Fever dreams reminding him how he once let himself be used. 

“You’re disgusting.” Tamlin mirrors his expression, filtered through a lense of his unique brand of cruelty. “Pining after another man like a diseased pervert.” 

“Yes, I remember you used to say that. Especially when you used to crawl into my bed stinking of alcohol and craving  _ my _ body. How many times did you say my name when you were fucking her, Tamlin? Or was that just the one time? We could have ended the whole curse situation decades earlier if you’d only been a little bit better at hiding how ‘disgusting’ you are.” 

“Shut up,” Tamlin yells, springing from the bed to grab him by the front of his shirt. “I am nothing like you.” 

“No,” Lucien agrees. “You’re not. I am so much more than you, a scared little boy. I don’t have to drink and fuck my way to pretending to be something I’m not.”

“Shut your whore mouth,” Tamlin says, “and strip.” 

“What are you going to do when I’m gone, Tam? Who else is going to let you drown them with your shit?” Decades of venom and resentment spew forth, and all the while he shrugs off his shirt and kicks away his trousers, undergarments. His point is so beautifully highlighted as Tamlin drinks in the sight of his naked body, his adam’s apple bobbing with a swallow. “This is the last time you’ll ever see this,” Lucien murmurs, watching him with vengeance's smile. “And then what will you have?”

For once, he gets no reply. Cauldron, Tamlin looks like a ghost. “Get on the bed,” Lucien instructs. 

“You don’t-”

“Get on the bed,” Lucien repeats, “else I’ll leave right now. You can test out your right hand as my replacement.”  

In a role reversal that has Lucien achingly hard, Tamlin slides back onto the bed, his brow and mouth contorted with conflict, but who cares? The point is, he obeys. “Shirt off,” Lucien says. He leans casually against the bedposts as the other unbuttons and discards his shirt, exposing that marvellous chest. Lucien keeps it just like that for as long as he pleases, chewing on his bottom lip as he commits the sight of ripped pectorals and enormous arms to memory. How did it take him this long to realise that the Lordling is obviously best suited to the role of decoration, not divine. 

“Are you going to let me fuck you, or what?” Tamlin mutters, flushed and fidgeting beneath the scrutiny. 

“Trousers.”

With Tamlin soon bare upon the sheets, Lucien clambers up to join him, looking down at him from where he stands. “Mmm,” he hums, tilting his head as his toes explore the hard, glistening planes of abdominals and calves. “I do have excellent aesthetic taste.” 

“Stop fucking b-” Tamlin starts, but he knows not the words to voice his distress. 

“What is it, sweetheart?” Lucien purrs, dipping his head down to lick up the side of his jaw, fondling his soft earlobe. “Not enjoying being a plaything?  _ My  _ plaything.”

“I am not,” he begins to protest, but Lucien snatches up a handful of his blonde locks and jerks his head towards his thighs. 

“You can shut up now, fuck toy. Hurry up, and start sucking my cock.” 

Flabbergasted, Tamlin sputters sounds of protest but never manages a single sentence. Good thing Lucien is so well accustomed to having to help him out. Soon his lips are slick across his cock and fucking him at whatever pace he chooses, his hand guiding the stunned man beneath him. “Tongue, darling. Cauldron, you’re awful at this. But then I shouldn’t be surprised, selfish has always been your thing.” It is hard to articulately degrade someone when their teeth are grating against your cock, but Lucien is a talented bastard. “Put a little effort in at least.” 

Perhaps spurred on by his mockery, Tamlin shifts and takes his hips in a vice grip, sucking in his cock like it’s delivering air to his lungs. It sloppy and amateurish but so very worth it to see The High Lord gagging as he shoves himself down, forcing him to deepthroat his dick without relenting. 

“Now who’s a cock hungry little slut?” Lucien sneers, never having expected this. He’d come here to be fucked, but he’d been so pissed off - not that he’s complaining. Power and lust and something far, far darker is surging through his bloodstream, more tantalising than anything he could have hoped for.

It’s a shitty blowjob, but he edges himself to come just for the satisfaction of watching Tamlin choke. “Swallow it, whore,” he commands, screwing Tamlin’s hair hard to force him to stay close, to make him swallow around his dick. With surprising ease, he obeys, gasping for air once his mouth his free. His eyes are hazy and glazed, distant. He looks up, slack-jawed, to stare at Lucien, cum glistening on his lips. 

He can only laugh. “There’s hope for you yet,” he murmurs, pressing his thumb to those wet lips before slipping deeper. Beneath his invasive touch, Tamlin is pliable and uncomplaining, his mouth stretched and distorted with only a shaky swallow as response. It is more surreal than if Nesta started simpering. 

“Who knew you would be so suited to submission?” Lucien muses aloud, rubbing the saliva and cum coating his hands off on Tamlin’s hair. 

“I’m-I’m not,” he stammers foggily, the defence rather ruined by how his mouth chases the other’s fingers, by how he tips closer back to Lucien’s cock. 

“Well let’s test out that theory, shall we?”

Tamlin is uncharacteristically quiet as his wrists are bound to the bedpost by his own drapery, swiftly followed by his ankles. The knots are especially tight; The bed will break first before they do, an idea Lucien rather likes the sound of. It deserves to be destroyed, now that he’s free of it. Too much of him has been poured into it, lost upon it. 

“That hurts,” Tamlin whines.

“Good,” is all Lucien says as he checks the knots again, “that’ll distract you from what  _ I’m _ going to be doing to you.” Miraculously, no protest is made. Should a safe word be applied? Should he allow Tamlin an out after everything he did? “...The usual rules apply.” He nods. Watches in captivated silence as Lucien surveys his options. 

Tellingly, Tamlin’s cock is rock hard, which suits him just fine since his body is yearning to be fucked again, especially when the other is all wrapped up like a pretty little present. He does not take his eyes off of Lucien; He looks almost as if he might cry. “Thinking about how much you’re losing?” Leaning over to the nightstand, he rummages through the drawer and prizes out the lubricant, snorting at how poorly hidden it is. “Feyre ever wonder why you had this little gift lying around?”

“She wasn’t allowed to look through my things for a reason.”

“Cauldron.” Lucien exhales sharply as with two coated fingers, he works the lube into his ass, trying not to moan while he is the one in charge. “You two really were doomed from the beginning.”

“She found her mate,” Tamlin mutters, pouting, though his eyes stay wide as he watches Lucien fuck himself with his fingers. “Nothing I did would have mattered.” 

“Of course it did, idiot,” Lucien mumbles between adding another finger into himself. 

“Oh, because you’re so perfect,” Tamlin snaps back, fighting back against his restraints to try and sit up and get all up in his face. “Do they know just how many people you’ve fucked? Does your new favourite High Lady know that you’ve played whore to her husband more times than she could even count?” 

“I tried to find you in a lot of people,” Lucien concedes, removing his hand from himself to trace the contours of the other’s powerful thighs. “But I never mistreated any of them, never lied. And can you really complain, when it won you so many alliances and favours?” 

“I can complain, because you were supposed to be mine. You really expected me to believe you loved me when you blew anything that moved?”

“For you,” he half hisses, half shouts, fighting the urge to hit him. “And don’t pretend like you didn’t tell me to. ‘Use whatever means necessary’, or what about ‘your particular talents will come in use, I’m sure’? 

“Perhaps I wanted to see if you’d refuse.” The bed creaks as Tamlin’s struggles against his bindings starts to get too much. “But then I never should have expected so much from a makeshift whore.” He snarls as he is struck like lightning across the cheekbones, a flaming red sting left behind. 

“For all your power,” Lucien’s says very, very quietly, “you are the most pathetic man I have ever met.” 

All chance of response is crushed as he forces himself onto Tamlin’s cock, purposefully jamming too hard, too brisk. He yelps out, unprepared, throwing himself back into the bedding to try and lessen the pain. “Poor baby,” Lucien croons, his voice dripping with honey and poison. He does not relent, his back arching out like a yawning cat as he grinds against the other. He in turn moans, at first trying to clamp it down, but the expert working of his cock soon has him loud enough to carry throughout the entire palace. “How does it feel to be fucked?”

The only answer he gets is a whimper, as he can feel precum dripping out of him. “Weren’t expecting to enjoy it, were you?” With sharp nails, he drags them down Tamlin’s chest, leaving vicious scratches behind. “Not very ‘manly’ is it? Worried it’ll make you  _ disgusting  _ too?” He only gasps in response, his throat full of quivering, fleeting syllables and unwittingly gorgeous  _ ‘ah’ _ s. “Listen to you. You’ll make a prime whore yet.”

Within him, Lucien can feel him stiffening, but he is quick to give him a sharp, painful rut to jerk him back to reality. “Don’t you dare fucking come yet.” With a sly smile, he pushes two fingers into the others mouth and palpitates his tongue, triggering his gag reflex so he wretches emptily. “Good whores know how to hold on. After all, I always waited for you.” Tamlin whines around his fingers, reduced to little more than a mewling quim. “You come first and I’m gone.” 

Tense against his taut restraints, he sucks headily at the fingers probing his teeth to try and distract himself, cock quivering, made no easier by how Lucien is rocking against him, earning a whimper with every shift. “Look at you now,” he purrs, fat with smug satisfaction. “I used to fear you. And this is what you’ve become.” He withdraws his fingers to scrape them over the other’s scalp, tugging, yanking, doing whatever he pleases whilst the other is kept from movement. 

The only problem is, watching Tamlin fall to pieces like this is really turning him on, and he can’t hold himself back forever. Knowing he needs to release one more thing, he reaches over - still riding Tamlin’s cock - and undoes the restraints binding his wrists. Grinding against the rock hard erection filling him, he finds the perfect angle to hitting that sweet spot and tips his head back.  

“Hands,” he instructs between curses, because holy Cauldron, his body is out of practice in one place only now and this  _ hurts _ . When Tamlin completely fails to understand, he grabs his wrists for him and brings his fingers to his neck, keeping them firm and close. Memory takes over, and even Tamlin knows what to do next, as he has done so often; He chokes him. Hard.

Though Lucien could never explain it, it feels so fucking good. The burning, burying sensation against his windpipe, the way blood feels as if it is swelling and expanding his his skull. His vision swims, a cascade of kaleidoscope blank spots. Tears sting his eyes, and he wavers on the brink of unconsciousness, balancing that perfect line of feeling too, too much, and nothing at all. 

Harder, he tries to order, but the air has escaped him and his chest feels as if it is caving in on itself. He tries to say it with his body, slamming against the hard, cool planes of Tamlin’s hips faster, arching his back, digging his nails into whatever scrap of flesh he can find. Slicking his fingers, he can feel the sticky warmth of fresh blood, but that only makes it easier to drag them sharp and angry down the muscular chest beneath him. 

Swearing, Tamlin is struggling to hold on. He turns his face aside, as if not looking can somehow save him. Well, Lucien can’t allow that. He grabs the man by the shoulders and draws him up until they are chest to chest, nestled groin to groin, nose to nose. He can barely see, but he can feel the heat of his breath upon his face, feel the sweat dripping down their collars mingling where their stomachs touch. 

Loosening his chokehold, Tamlin wraps his fingers in Lucien’s flame red hair and uses that instead to criss-cross around his neck. It hardly stops him breathing, but now he can see how dishevelled and ruined Tamlin looks, so he’s in no mood to complain. Instead, he uses the new position to sink his nails into the other’s thick, pliable back and kneel over. At first he blesses his shoulders with a chaste kiss, before he shoves down on the other’s cock and bites him hard enough to draw a hound-like whimper. 

Mouth rather occupied, he says nothing, and Tamlin can only pant as he fucks him harder. They stop pissing about with hair and whining and the only sound is the quickening of breath and the slapping of skin on skin. Lucien feels nothing but the sensation of pain and satisfaction inside of him, the vengeful triumph of biting this bastard as hard as he fucking likes. 

He comes all over Tamlin’s chest., getting a fair amount on his neck and chin. Tamlin follows seconds after, exhaling with a thunderous shiver as he is finally allowed to release. Honestly, Lucien’s surprised he came last. He never could last long before. 

Tamlin is slack-jawed, bleary eyed, swaying a little. When Lucien pinches his jaw between his fingers, he looks at him without recognition, completely checked out. “Good,” Lucien murmurs. He leans in and nips his earlobe sharply. “Now for the rest of the house.”

And he stays true to his word. Every place they have fucked - and he remembers them all, for they were once the only snatches of time that kept him going - he makes them fuck again, long past the point where Tamlin becomes near incoherent in a kind of endorphin-high subspace. His servants do a good job of keeping clear, although when they fuck against and in the fountain, Lucien can see them watching from the windows. 

They finish once more in the bedroom, Lucien ordering that he be fucked face-forced into the pillows, as was Tamlin’s old favourite position. When they are done, Tamlin is black and blue around the shoulders, his chest and back and thighs a mess of bloodied lines. Lucien’s neck has fingerpads purpling up all around it, and he’s pretty sure he’s lost half his hair. But it was worth it. Because now it is over.

“Stay the night?” Tamlin asks, from where he lies sprawled across the sheets. At the door, Lucien glances back at him. Smiles. 

“Not a fucking chance.” 


End file.
